HoN Item Usage Guide – Tutorial and Tips on How to Use Each Item In Heroes of Newerth

This guide will help to teach you basic strategy and usage for each of the many different items in Heroes of Newerth. This will mostly focus on items which give special effects or have activated abilities. Pure stats items are self-explanatory so won’t usually be covered.

You MUST learn to use the hotkeys for items, just like your spells. By default the hotkeys for items are Alt-Q, Alt-W, and Alt-E for the top row. The bottom row is Alt-A, Alt-S, and Alt-D. I like to to put my most commonly used items on the top row since it is easier to reach the keys. For example, Ghost Marchers go in the Alt-Q space, and Homecoming Stones in the Alt-E space. You can move items around by right clicking on them.

Certain items that would usually require a click can be triggered without requiring a targeting click by activating them twice. For example, press Alt-Q then Alt-Q again quickly. For Homecoming Stones, this will automatically teleport you back to your fountain. For the Tablet of Command, this will automatically push you forward.

Heroes of Newerth Item Guide

The Items (Right Column)

Initiation

Power Supply – Gets up to 15 charges, 1 each time an enemy casts a spell in range. Useful to keep you in fights or for an emergency supply of HP and mana. Has an added stat bonus over Mana Battery. Always get this if fighting against a spell-spammer like Armadon, but is almost always a useful option for most heroes.

Sustainer – Great item that increases you HP and mana regeneration so you won’t need to return to the fountain as often. Also very useful to upgrade into great items like Sacrificial Stone and Runed Axe.

Whispering Helm – Gives great lifesteal and a nice armor bonus, and allows you to Dominate a creep every 300 seconds. Use Dominate on useful creeps such as a Minotaur (increase attack speed aura and an activateable stun).

Alchemist’s Bones – Gives great attack speed and has a great bonus of turning a creep into gold once every 100 seconds. When possible, use this on neutral creeps in the Jungle as they will give you more gold than standard enemy creeps. This extra gold allows you to purchase high level items much earlier. Very useful when both attack speed and items are needed–a great choice on Puppet Master.

Plated Greaves – An upgrade for Marchers; gives a movement speed bonus and a small stat and armor bonus. Also has an activated ability to give all nearby allies (and creeps) an extra armor bonus. Very useful on support and lane-pushing heroes.

Steamboots – An upgrade for marchers; adds attack speed and a large stat bonus. An extra 10 stats can switched whenever you want between AGI, INT, and STR. Because of this it is very useful to make up for lacking damage, mana, or HP respectively.

Ghost Marchers – An upgrade for marchers. Adds a medium amount of damage and has an incredibly useful activated ability that gives 10% movement speed and unitwalking (phasing). Great for getting into position, chasing, and escaping. Lacks any stat bonus however.

Post Haste – An upgrade for marchers. Very expensive compared to the other upgrades. Gives the highest base move speed of any boots, but gives no stat bonus whatsoever. Also gives the extremely helpful ability to teleport to any ally creep on the map (this ability shares a cooldown with Homecoming Stones). This saves you from ever needing to buy more TPs and is great for pushing lanes or getting back into a fight in time. Not seen as often as the other Marchers upgrades due to the cost and lack of stats.

Supportive – coming soon!

Protective – coming soon!

Combative – coming soon!

Morph Attack – coming soon!

The Items (Left Column)

Accessories

All pure-stat items. Almost always these items will be used in recipes to upgrade into a more advanced item later in the game.

Weapons

Logger’s Hatchet – Increases damage against creeps. Usually purchased at the start of a game to help low damage heroes to last-hit and farm creeps. Don’t buy this mid-late game. Can also be used to cut down trees to destroy Keeper’s wards. Can’t be sold back.

Iron Buckler – Provides excellent survivability, especially early game, to heroes who need it. Usually this is melee heroes with low HP. Reduces incoming damage via regular attacks (by creeps or heroes) by 20 damage 60% of the time. Usually only buy one if any, but Legionnaire should get two of these since he will be constantly be getting attacked. Magebane is a good example of a hero who will often get one.

Relics

Portal Key – Used for initiation, escape, and to gain perfect positioning for using other skills. Some initiators will teleport into the middle of enemies and some will teleport just in front or behind to fire off a stun spell. For escaping, it can’t be used for a few short seconds after you are hit by enemy heroes. To use PK to flee you can teleport into the middle of a clump of trees, or just use it as a speed burst to gain extra ground quickly.

Mana Battery – Very helpful early and mid game to keep you in the fight longer or save your life in an emergency. Especially useful against enemies who are constantly casting cheap spells. You will almost always want to upgrade this to a Power Supply as it is cheap and this item slot will then also give you a nice stat bonus.

Bound Eye – NOTE: DROPS ON DEATH! Used to easily and always see invisible heroes. Usually the “tank” or other high-survivability hero will carry this, but anyone may buy it for them to carry. Almost always will be purchased when fighting against perpetually invisible heroes like Scout and Night Hound. Also quite useful against an enemy carry who is using Assassin’s Shroud (most often this would be Soul Stealer but others are possible).

Void Talisman – Not seen in use very often, but could be useful (rarely) if you find yourself targeted often by a carry and need help surviving. Physical attacks (autoattacks) do not hurt you, but you cannot attack either. Don’t buy this unless you have a very specific reason for doing so.

Marchers – you will almost always be buying these in every game. Usually you will buy these when you make 500 gold. Never buy right at the start of a game with your beginning 600 gold. Marchers increase your move speed and are necessary to get into position, chase, or to have any hope of escaping a bad situation. Almost always upgraded every game, for every hero, into Ghost Marchers, Steamboots, or Plated Greaves for more move speed and stats bonuses.

Mystical Vestments – Cheap way to get extra survivability if you are being hit by damaging spells often.

Supplies

Very useful smaller items.

Courier, Health & Mana Potion, Wards, Bottle

Secret Shop

Contains high cost items needed in advanced recipes. Be careful mid-late game as you may get noticed and ganked by the enemy team when going here.

Outpost

Homecoming Stone should be bought here for on-the-go escaping or going to defending towers

Mana Battery can be purchased here especially if you are up against a spamming lane like Armadon

Other useful small items are here like Lifetube, Scarab. Most others you will usually just purchase from your home fountain however.